Final Recap of Our Predictions for 2017

As part of our predictions for 2017, we also looked at some ongoing trends from prior years that we thought would continue into 2017. Here's our list and how we did.

Ongoing trends:

1.      NFL ratings will continue to decline. Whether it’s overexposure or kneeling, we got this right. Grade: A

2.      Drug pricing will get a lot of attention. We got this right, too. Grade: A

3.      Wearable tech will still not be as mainstream as people in the industry were hoping. Fitness trackers aside, this was true. Grade: A

4.      Progress to a driverless-car future will slow down. We thought the problem would be a combination of needing to solve some technical issues as well as liability issues but we were wrong. Seems driverless-cars are moving forward quickly. Grade: D (because liability issues have not been resolved)

5.      3D printers will continue to proliferate in schools but remain unnecessary in the home. Still right about that. Grade: A

6.      Cord cutting will be expensive and complicated. There continue to be more streaming services but add up Internet access and lots of $10 monthly fees from many different providers (Amazon Prime, Netflix, Hulu, CBS, etc.) and it will quickly add up to be equal to your regular cable bill and vastly more complicated to juggle from one service to another. Grade: A

7.      eBook sales will continue to plateau while traditional book sales increase slightly. Actually, eBook sales declined nearly 20%, according to CNN. So we got part of it wrong – but printed books increased. Grade: A

8.      e-Wallets still won’t be as widely adopted as some were projecting. We said, “they will go mainstream but not in 2017 or 2018” and we’re probably right but we’re seeing more retail terminals taking wireless payment methods even if most purchases we’ve seen are conducted with traditional credit cards. So, while not everyone has transferred all wallet items into e-Wallets, certainly it’s a growing trend that’s alive and thriving. But could somebody please, please tell school photographers that we haven’t needed 1x4 wallet-size photos of our kids, much less eight 1x4s, in at least a decade. We have all the photos we need on our phones, thank you very much. Not even grandparents want them. Grade: C+ 

You can check out our other recap here and the first five here.

Look for our predictions for 2018 before Christmas.